I used to wear heels that made me six feet tall.  I loved being tall and accepted my big feet for the anchors.  I never liked my body much though, or my face, always found fault.  When I was approaching 30 years old I decided to get in shape.  I'd been in shape a couple of times before... from jiujitsu in high school and my first year of river guiding.  My plan at age 30 had to do with biking, swimming, and walking, hopefully running but I had never been a runner.

( When I was living in Knoxville,Collapse )

Pain is temporary.
It may last a minute, or an hour,
or a day, or a year,
but eventually it will subside
and something else will take its place.
If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
--Lance Armstrong

I just got back from a yoga class, to which I drove my truck. Driving anywhere is still strange to me. For the last year my truck was not registered. For several years before that it was registered, but I barely managed to start it up once a week. I ride my bike. I use public transportation. I walk. I have an aversion to the automobile. I think it is part of our demise. And yet, I drive. I just drove all the way to AZ and back. And it was a blessing.
( ruminationCollapse )

http://www.portofportland.com/Notices/PDX_Bike_Assmbly_01_HTM.htm
Portland is now providing bike assembly stations for travelers flying in or out with a bike.

interesting new 2-wheeled motorized urban personal transport
it folds up tiny and goes 25km/hour
looks like it rides as instinctively as a bike--after a while
http://www.yikebike.com/site/gallery/video/yikebike-discovery-channel
my concern is the sort of posture that it traps you in, upright but slumped
like we need any more reasons to slouch and be sedentary

Whoa, Nelly.

They make it look so easy...and where is the law?

The last time I rode my bike was in late November, I think. It was the day that Fritz came through town. I was on my way home in the dusk at 5pm, and had made it successfully across the Ross Island Bridge and the 9th Ave pedestrian bridge. Traffic was heavy so I rode down Milwaukee looking for a chance to get across it. It never let up enough for me to even shift over to the left side of the lane and look for a chance to turn left. So I went to the pedestrian walkway at the Brooklyn Park.
( moreCollapse )